The Next Voice You Hear
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: The temptation of Marcus Cole. Our favorite Ranger never *was* asked the all-important question-- "What do you want?" (I/M)
1. Anything

Wow-- it's been forever since I've written a B5 fic! Since 1999, actually. Boy, don't I feel OLD. ^_~ First of all, thank you so much for bothering to take a look at my story. I am in your debt!

This is an alternate universe after Endgame. (Yes, I'm one of those scary I/M people. **-wink-**) However, in this universe, Marcus was stopped before he could save Susan. It occurred to me that Marcus was never asked that all-important question. -devilish grin- 

I do hope you enjoy! I would absolutely adore you if you'd take pity on me and send me some feedback. ^_^

Ja matta, ne. 

-Meredith

****

Legal Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't hurt me. *shoos the big scary lawyers away*

[to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Rein Deer"] 

__

Meredith the little fic writer, 

Loved to get feedback for her posts, 

If you could see her face when she received it, 

You might even say she glowed. 

Like most other writers, 

She was a little feedback greedy, 

But maybe we can keep that, 

just between you and me!

===========================

The Next Voice You Hear 1/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

===========================

He knew, the instant Susan's heartbeat stopped. 

In his own veins, his blood seemed to rush then still. Sinking down against the small cot in his cell, Marcus held onto his scarred wrist as though it was a weapon with which he might reap retribution for her death. Two small circles on the inside of his wrist, deep and brown red with cloting blood; he though they looked like manicles, like the mark of someone owned by someone else. That much was true.

To come so close and then be stopped! Connected to her through the machine, he'd felt that mysterious *something* that was his life fleeing his body. He had been glad to give it to Susan, had watched intently as her breathing deepened and some of her color returned. His fingers tingled-- the sensory memory of touching her cheek, her hair, as if human contact might draw her soul back into her body. He had laughed a little then, a broken gasping sound, because he had turned death's gaze from her. Victorious, and then---

Hands, ripping him away, restraining him. Under Stephen's orders, they had unhooked first his link to her (he'd howled, feeling something suddenly missing that he hadn't even known was there), and then disconnecting her from the machine. The change in her body had been instant-- it was sacreliege that they could just *stand* there and *watch*-- she had seemed to wither, her healing body suddenly deprived. She *was* death incarnant then, her soul grasping for nurshiment like a crazy black hole; he would only have been too happy to let himself be devoured in that wake. For him, there came the night but no forgetfullness-- trapped under the weight of sedation, he'd been painfully aware but unable to move. He dreamt of Susan, pale and phantasmic, reaching to take fruit from a tree that bore red, red berries in the shape of skulls. 

"Damn you!" he raged, seeking someone to blame. In several quick strides, he crossed the room, reached the wall of the secuirty cell and turned back. With harsh hands, he over turned the small metal table, sending it reeling towards the door. "It was my decision," he murmured, suddenly spent, "she..." But there were no words to finish that sentence. Susan was his last tie to the world of flesh; he'd watched so closely for the glimpses of that strange, iradescent mystery behind her usual icy battlements. While reaching for that, he had come to love the very barriers she'd made to keep the world from her; frigid, painful but honest. Tipping his head back, Marcus felt his body relax in the extreme, as if ready to come apart; he wept without making any noise, tasting the heat of his own tears.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

"Marcus."

He ignored the sound, keeping his eyes closed and his face buried in the material of his Ranger uniform. Without sight, the world was simply a dark place wih voices; no different from his nightmares.

"Marcus." Again, more insistant. Vaguely, he sensed someone reaching out towards him.

"I suggest you leave, Stephen," his voice seemed raw, and he dimly remembered screaming. Eyes open, he saw Stephen sitting nearby, hand paused in the air. Marcus eyed his friend, watching as the doctor withdrew the offer of comfort, thinking wildly that even if Stephen had tried to touch him, it wouldn't have worked. He was utterly lost someplace beyond that, now. 

Stephen's dark eyes held the gaze for a moment, before looking away, "Marcus, I..." 

"If you've come tell me she's dead--" Marcus spat the word, "I already know."

"How?" Stephen's face was expressionless-- slack. Somethng flickered behind there, though.

"So she is gone," slowly, Marcus uncurled his body from the crouching position and laid down to face the wall. His arms held each other-- the circle of his embrace was empty as always, but now there was no possibility to fill it. 

// Her eyes, candid, as she repeated his secret confession from memory-- perfect Minbari. "Thank you," a smile he'd never seen before, careful and hesitantly happy. He'd been sure he'd forgotten how to breathe.//

"Go away, Stephen," he said, somehow keeping his anger in check, "Just leave."

"Marcus," the metal chair moved-- he could hear Stephen standing, pacing. "For God's Sake!" the doctor's voice rose, "Don't sit there and blame me-- I'm a healer, do you think I can just sit there and watch a friend die?"

"You didn't seem to have any trouble watching Susan die," Marcus sneered, "Did you *see* what happened after you disconnected the machine? It was working-- I just needed a little more time! Unhooking her made her worse off than before. Did you even *try* to help her, or did she just die in Isolab, flatline?" Turning to face his friend, Marcus mimicked the sound of 'no pulse'. "Opps! So much for being a healer." Then, much more quitely, "I could have saved her."

"At the cost of your own life!" Stephen pressed his fingers to his temples, glaring at the other man. 

Marcus shrugged, "Doesn't matter. She would have lived."

"Can't you get this through your thick skull? You. Would. Be. Dead."

"And you think I'm not now?" 

Stephen moved his hands, as if he could take hold of the situation and make it smaller, "She wouldn't have wanted you to do that."

"She deserved a miracle!" Marcus raged, "Sheridan comes back from the dead, Sinclair cheats time, death and Valen only knows what else. Mr. Garabaldi gets shot in the back, and lives; you're stabbed in the back-- you live. For all we know, Lyta is immortal, and Delenn has hundreds willing to die for her-- the only thing she needs to worry about is protecting herself from herself! What did Susan have?"

Silence. The brief hum of some near-by computer terminal coming on line.

"Well?" 

"Marcus," Stephen's voice wavered; the words were uncertain, holding up only because the doctor so vehemently needed to believe in them. "The injuries were fatal, there was nothing I could do..."

"There was something *I* could do! And," Marcus covered his mouth with his hand briefly, a frail gesture; he really did not want to hold his anger in. "I seem to remeber that you didn't really have a problem interfering when there was a chance she might live. My life for hers-- an easy trade off. You worked so hard to stop me!Did you *want* her to die?"

A flicker of horror in Stephen's face, "Of course not, I never--"

Marcus shook his head, watching as the world became a mad abstract painting that blurred with his tears, "What was it that killed her?"

A heavy sigh, "When we unhooked her, the pierce marks from the machine wouldn't clot. She just... kept on bleeding. Loss of blood and-- her heart colapsed in on itself."

"Get out of here, Stephen," this time the words were iron, the flash of the guillotine blade before it comes down, "Or Valen help me, I'll..." To his own surprise, Marcus found himself aproaching the doctor, unsure of the intentin of his clenched hands. The cell door pulled away at Stephen's command, and Marcus stood still, waiting until the rest of the world was closed off. He had a hard time believing the universe existed beyond his cell.

"God, why?" He perched on the edge of the cot, head in his hands. "After Hasiana and Willy... people where just faces." He had no idea who he was speaking to, but his tone took on a bargaining plea, "*She* was real. I can't... isn't there anything..."

Time seemed to steady and halt-- stagnant blood. ("Her heart collapsed...") Marcu held onto the word "anything" with surprising desperation. 

Then, the sound of the door opening and a shaft of light from the hallway that was somehow the crimson of blood.

"Stephen," Marcus growled, "I told you..." He looked up, and the words died in his throat.

Said the shadowy sillohette in the doorway, "I believe you've at least heard of me, Mr. Cole."

He asked the question without thinking, "What do you want?"

"Now, now, Mr. Cole," the visitor repostioned the metal chair Stephen had perviously occupied, resting his elbows on his knees, "That's rather unfair of you. It's my job to ask that question, as you well know." The young man smiled, smooth and insincere.

"You're dead," Marcus stated firmly, as if belief was strong enough to banish. It wasn't strong enough to bring Susan back.

"A minor distinction, I assure you," the visitor moved his hands, a false gesture of being smilingly helpless. "What do you know of death? Maybe it's being born-- maybe it's waking up and you keep waking up, layers of an onion. Maybe your Susan," it was strange, the way he said that, "has woken up to be someone else. Maybe she's stretching in her bed right now, thinking of her awful dream, even if it had some... *nice* aspects."

"Bastard---"

"The circumstances of my birth are not under scurtiny here, Mr. Cole," another smile, he seemed made of Cheshire grins. "You did say 'anything', didn't you?"

Marcus swallowed hard, suddenly remembering his mother's voice, saying that we can never guess if God recieves our prayers, but if the Devil hears, he lets us know.

Mr. Morden rested his chin on the bridge of his hands, charmingly interested, "Anything?"

The door was still open, with bloodlight pouring in. Blood that fled her body, blood that...

"What do you want, Marcus Cole?"


	2. A Past You Can't Touch

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks so much for all the positive feedback! And to Natters, especially, for the cute little verse. ^_^ I am planning on continuing this story a great deal-- I'm so glad people are interested!

__

"Let's say, that I'm all alone,

Not being able to see anything at all,

Let's say, that even still,

Desperately trying to move forward through it all,

Please, onto this hand..."

- Hamasaki Ayumi, 'Endless Sorrow'

===========================

The Next Voice You Hear 2/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

===========================

Mr. Morden asked, "What do you want, Marcus Cole?"

"I want..." Marcus bit down hard on his lip, horrified at his almost-answer. 

"Come now, Mr. Cole," the shadow man soothed, "Let's be candid. You've tried to be noble, you've played by their rules and they still stopped you. You were right-- Sheridan, Delenn, the others, they've all had their miracle, their," Morden scoffed, mocking the Vorlons, "'one moment of perfect beauty'. They found loopholes. Nobody stopped them, but they stopped you. Why is that?"

"I don't know," Marcus said miserably.

"Mr. Cole," a pause, "Marcus-- can I call you Marcus?"

Suddenly, swift and sharp, Marcus laughed, "I've gone mad."

"Of course, Marcus," Morden was unimpressed, "if you weren't mad, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. Mad people have nothing to loose-- do you know what constitutes as 'crazy'?"

"This isn't happening," Marcus shielded his face behind his hand, "Fine, enlighten me."

"Insanity-- as they say, is animalistic. It's getting what you want-- placing that as most important," Morden's tone was cordial, as if explaining something to an equal. "Do you think Sheridan was sane when he was resurrected from Za'ha'dum, or that Delenn was in her right mind when she attempted to rescue him? Sheridan was dead-- he wanted Delenn, who was alive. So he became alive. Your Entil'Za wanted Sheridan, who was dead, so she did everything in her power to end her own life without dishonoring herself. They got what they wanted. What do *you* want?"

"The Shadows are gone," the Ranger protested, fighting down the strange ache growing in his heart, "I watched them leave." Susan had been there, too, holding onto the command chair with knuckles blossoming white, and when he'd asked if they'd won, she'd been so obviously glad to hear another human voice that her own shook when she scolded him.

"The Vorlons are gone, too," Morden pointed out, a flicker of frustration in his eyes, "the Minbari served the Vorlons, and they're still around. In the same way, the servants of the Shadows also remain here. The Minbari find God in their endless order. But..." Morden's smile was a mirthless show of teeth, "Deus Ex Machina. God is in the Machine."

The telepaths, implanted with Shadow Tech, one with the Machine... Susan, hooked up the Machine, her body slowly coming alive. He'd felt his affection flowing into her, along with his life energy. 

The machine. //"God sent me."//

Morden leaned forward, his gaze penetrating, "What do you want?"

His arms ached-- everything ached, Marcus realized. The rest of his life wanted out of his body, it wanted to be free. "I want..." He gripped his temples, dizzy and sick with himself.

"Her?" Morden's voice was oddly compassionate, "That my associates can do. Very easily. Just say the words."

An image, so full of sensation and sharp he was sure for one insane moment that it was real. Susan, face relaxed in sleep, hands folded over her heart; the lines of her body were feline, though she rested the world seemed to wait for her to move. Then, her smile as he said something ridiculous-- sudden and unguarded. 

"There's a price," Marcus grasped sanity, held on until he thought his fingers would break.

Morden shrugged, "There's always a price."

"Can you take my life and revive her?"

"I'm afraid not."

A gritting of teeth. "Why?"

"Because," the dead man laughed, just a little, "That's not what you really want. Nobility does you credit, Marcus, but not much else. Killing yourself for her would have been easy-- she wakes up, lives, and you never have deal with it."

"She fought against you," the Ranger managed, remembering the quicksilver-blue steel in Susan's eyes, "She would hate me. She had no feelings for me-- she wouldn't understand."

"Then what was that on the White Star, just before the battle?" Morden shot the question out, "And when she was injured?"

A hiss, "Get out of my head!" 

And yet... she had smiled, had thanked him as she gripped her hands little uncertainly, looking up at him through the curtain of her ebony lashes. It was him she reached for near death. She had watched him crying. She had whispered through her dry lips, so quietly, "I'm sorry", and he told her more harshly than he intended that she had nothing to be sorry for. It must have hurt her to smile, but she did, and she moved her lips to form sounds but fatigue had faded whatever she'd meant to say.

"You're manipulating me," the words sounded pitiful in Marcus' own ears.

"No," Morden said truthfully, "I don't make things that aren't there." Studying Marcus for a moment, the shadow man stood, "Think about it, Mr. Cole. When you come to a decision, I'll find you." 

When next the cell door opened, there was only light, bright and pure, coming from the hallway. Lennier came, insisted Marcus eat, and really the conversation with Mr. Morden couldn't have happened. It couldn't have.

The frightening thing was that Marcus found himself hoping the offer *had* been real. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

They gathered for the funeral, leaning on one another as if to stretch their grief between them. Lennier led Marcus to a chair and left the Ranger to sit, an empty eat on either side. Delenn sat just a ways away, Sheridan by her side, and when she tried to touch Marcus' shoulder he gazed at her with eyes that made the invisible barrier around him all too real. They rose, one by one, to stand at the fore of the observation deck. Just outside, her coffin floated anchored to a Star Fury. They would send her into the sun. 

Garibaldi stood with his head down just a little, embarrassed, out of sorts. He said Ivanova ran a tight ship, that she held everything together. She went down fighting, like she would have wanted to (and no one looked at Marcus, they were all carefully looking away). She was a soldier. He would miss her.

Sheridan had gotten used to addressing people; he was mechanical and flawless. He said that she was like his sister, that he always trusted her. That he was so grateful she'd been stationed with them when Babylon 5 broke away from Earth.

Delenn said Ivanova was brave and kind, Lennier said she had honor, Zak said he had always respected her, Stephen said she was strong, Lyta said, Corwin said, G'kar said...

With all eyes on his form, Marcus took the few strides from his chair to the main floor. He stood without facing them, looking out at the sleek chrome coffin. He drew a breath, turned and saw that none of them understood. Shaking his head, he returned to his seat without saying anything. 

The Star Furies flew in the Missing Man formation. 

Missing soldier, Marcus thought, missing person. I miss you.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

"You must do this, Marcus," Delenn's voice was firm, authority veiled in pleading. "You mustn't allow this to drown you, to tarnish your soul."

"And what am I supposed to do? Just forget?" Marcus asked, unable to feel even his lips as they formed the words. He sat cross-legged before a small altar in the main of Delenn's quarters; in the dim ceremonial candle-light, there were so many shadows. "When Willy and Hasina died, I lost the people I loved. Everyone else just.. was. I could scream and scream and no one would hear me. Susan-- she could hear me. She knew, because she was also screaming. I'm not real anymore."

"You *are* real," Lennier said, coming to kneel at Marcus' side, "You're holding onto her too tightly. If she is to be reborn, if you are to see her again, then you *must* let her go."

Impatiently, "What if I want to see her *now*?" 

The candles seemed to flicker in an impossible breeze, and Delenn shivered, drawing her body closer in her satin robes. Lennier's hazel eyes seemed to widen with sudden understanding.

"We don't always get what we want," he said softly.

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you?" Marcus lashed out, "Don't sit here and preach to me, don't tell me what I'm doing wrong! *She* might as well be dead to you, for all the chance you have. Do you like having scraps from her table?"

Lennier tightened his grip on Marcus' shoulder, but the Minbari's eyes were on Delenn. She sat back on her heels, hands fluttering in the air like fleshy butterflies.

"She..?" Delenn began, as if she was a delicate fey in a glass jar, ready to break. For the first time, Marcus wondered if perhaps even Delenn ignored certain things.

"I am happy if the person I love is happy," Lennier's hand was a painful iron, a claw around Marcus' collar bone. The Ranger bore it without complaint. "I keep my feelings to myself so as not to alter her vision of the universe, much the same way you did. You would not have wanted someone to inform Susan of your feelings." Lowly, something that was a command and not a request, "Please have that same respect for me." Delenn released a long, low breath and Lennier refused to meet her gaze.

"Yes, well," Marcus scoffed, "I tried to see that Susan would be happy, that she would live, but you seemed to think she didn't deserve it!"

"That is not what motivated us, Marcus," the Entil'Za's touch was gentle, motherly, easing Lennier's hand away, "You must know that." Delenn's eyes were emerald fire, molten and filled with knowledge; for a moment, Marcus wanted to tell her, to say he had been tempted (was being tempted, still very tempted), but he somehow couldn't fit the words together.

Delenn reached into the silver folds of her robe, removing a small onyx box that looked for all the world like a miniature coffin resting in her hand. "We will go ahead with the Koibito no Hitsugi," she set the box on the low altar, setting the lid aside with an audible 'click'. "You loved her, Marcus-- you honor her by doing this."

"Love. I love her," the Ranger corrected, clinging to the present tense. "Very well," he surrendered, laying his hands palm-up on the glass surface before him. His left wrist still bore the twin kiss of the machine, deep and with every chance of scaring. Delenn lifted the injured hand and studied it, before removing a small, smoky topaz crystal from the box. 

"Each generation of souls is born into the next," Delenn chanted, and Marcus shivered because he felt he'd seen her gentle, somehow suspicious smile before. "These souls travel in groups to relive the good relationships and-- if possible-- to fix the bad. Susan Ivanova has passed beyond the veil, and now," she held the crystal just above Marcus' pulse-point, "Marcus will remember a pleasant time from another life, so as to renew his hope of seeing her again in the next." Quite suddenly, the Entil'Za's slim hands were like unyielding marble and she brought the crystal down hard against his wrist like a scythe. 

He saw-- he closed his eyes in panic, trying not to see, but it was there anyway. He had not thought of lives before, or of seeing Susan beyond death; it was too insubstantial, and he was lucky he could generate enough belief in himself most days. But it was true-- the Minbari always had nasty tools to show you the truth. 

//Earth-- here there was sunlight, warm, and turning the grass and leaves a green of light through peridot. In this life, Susan's hair was darker, more straight, and her face moon-round instead of hard set like the Roman goddesses. It was her, never the less, the essence of Susan shining through the flesh and blood. She was real and alive and for a moment he was utterly breathless with it, as his past self had been. She turned, the wind blowing fine wisps of hair over her face, but she was looking at him. Wrapped in a loose silken robe of blue, she knelt on the ground, reaching up for the low branch of a tree, pulling it down with one hand. A slant of green-glow light graced her bare shoulders, the shadowy slope of her breasts. Drawing the branch down, she lifted her lips to touch a berry, eyes closed and face rapt with wonder. It was the still in the trees before a hurricane, the bright reflection of an earlier nightmare. Mirrors, upon mirror upon mirrors. He wasn't sure if it was his past or present self, but some part of him seemed to hear 'she'll never be any happier than she is right now.'//

The colors had burned into Marcus' eyes so that when he opened them, he saw the vision super-imposed over the world, a strange negative. Delenn's hands pulled away as gracefully as the autumn breeze you just half-catch. Gently, she laid the newly crimson crystal in its coffin, watching Marcus from a swift glance beneath her lashes. He remained where he was, gripping the side of the altar and drawing breath in like a drowning man. He half-expected Susan to form from the shades of half-light, blue-silver robe held about her as she smiled. 

"What did you do to me?" he bit down on the words individually, barely restraining himself from reaching out towards where the vision had been-- just a drop of water for the man dying in the desert. His own mind seemed more vast now. What secrets, what sad happy needful memories were locked away in there? Superstitiously, he thought that perhaps if he could distill all of Susan's names into... a word? a phrase?... he might somehow be able to conjure her from the deep.

//"Her? My associates can give her to you... just say the words."//

"Marcus," Delenn began, her hand touching briefly to his back-- her language was as much word as it was deed, she was all meaningful touches and deep glances. "You will see her again where no shadows fall-- you will always have another chance. This was only meant to reaffirm your faith, so you can live out the rest of this left."

"Do you delight in tormenting me?" Marcus cast his gaze from Delenn to Lennier, and back again, "You show me a moment of happiness and then you take it away!" Roughly, he shoved himself up from the altar, sending the little onyx box tumbling to the deck. The sound of the crystal breaking was like the crack of bone-- he was astonished to watch it bleed. "I never even got a chance... we were both all the time screaming... I never got the chance to tell her I heard her, that I wanted to help her make it stop."

"Not this time," Lennier corrected, "There is always next time."

"To hell with next time!" Marcus placed his hands close to his neck, as if to assure himself he was real. He eyed the Minbari with a measure of pity and incomprehension, "You may be content to sit there and wait and hope for your turn, but there's no guarantee! I tried..." he felt fire on his face-- hot tears, "I tried so hard. Why her? What did she do to deserve that?"

Delenn took a deep breath, her arms half-out in he offer of a supportive, motherly embrace. For a moment, Marcus wanted to kneel before the Entil Zha and confess, but the whole of his life stretched out empty before him. A chill day on Arisia, with the naked, twisted trees against the yellow sky. He remembered; the nightmare and the vision, grotesque inversions of one another. At least he could believe Susan was *somewhere*. 

The thought came unbidden; 'if she is somewhere, she can be found'.

"I'm can't..." Marcus said, backing away from his friends, fumbling blindly for the door, "Even you wanted to stop me. She deserved to live!" Detecting his frantic motions, the door slid open, spilling in light from the hallway. He thought for a moment that the light was red. There was a type of almost audible crack-- a child flinging himself from a bell tower, laughing at death. "I know what I want." Delenn's eyes were that same color from the vision, the sun coming through the green trees; they were wide as well, with partial understanding and a healthy amount of fear. 

Horrified with himself, he cried and began to run, "Valen help me, I'm not even sorry!" 

====================

Stay tuned for more

(to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star") 

Uppers, uppers, little thread, 

As I haul myself to bed, 

As I slumber in the sack, 

I hope kind people leave feedback. 

So be to my thread be kind, 

And leave some feedback behind! 


	3. Answer

****

Author's Notes: Thank you so much for bothering to read so far! I hope you're enjoying things as they progress. My deep appreciation goes to the sweet people who've sent feedback-- Miss Long, Natters, Night Sky and Sabrina. Chocolate Marcus-es to you all! *wink*

Without further ado

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

The Next Voice You Hear 3/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Delenn remained kneeling after Marcus had gone, watching as his distorted shadow slithered behind him silently. Lennier stood in the doorway, poised as though he was torn between going after his friend and staying to comfort the Entil'Zha. Almost seamlessly, the young Minbari moved further into the room, and the door slid shut behind him.

"I am afraid, Lennier," Delenn found it took amzing effort to move her lips, "I try to maintain the old ways-- I... I sometimes forget that humans are wired differently from Minbari. They react differently. I can understand why he is upset." A slight, incredulous breath, "I find that I am upset."

"You can't blame yourself," Lennier knelt by her side, hand hovering just above her velvet-clad shoulder. He never seemed to really touch her. "Marcus is grieving. His grief will pass, with time."

She looked up suddenly, a lock of burnished umber hair falling softly agaist her cheek. In tht moment, her eyes were the color of an ocean in the eye of a storm, deep and penetrating. //Will *your* grief pass?// The words seemed inscribed in the double black moons of her pupils. //WILL it, Lennier?// Raising a hand to her lips as if she had really said the words, Delenn closed her eyes. In that moment, Lennier sensed a shift in himself, from honorary brother to... His hand clenched, nails biting into the flesh of his palm, and with his free hand he brushed the stray lock of hair back behind Delenn's ear. A flash-- her eyes were open, and still he trailed his finger along the delicate line of her jaw.

"Lennier--" she was looking away, off at some distant, dark water image he could not see, "The person y0u love..." Suddenly, she smiled, gentle and... well, there were no words, "Never mind. I am sorry to have burdened you with my troubles."

"I am always happy to help lighten your load, Delenn," Lennier let his hand drop, fingers limp and tingling from touching her. He stood, and for a moment she was in his shadow, and he could see the terrible power held in her lithe girl-child form and it was all he needed to strengthen his resolve never to speak the words. He bowed once and left, trying very hard to tell himself she did not know.

'As long as you don't say it, it isn't real.'

Alone, Delenn cleaned the blood from the seer's crystal.

Unfair, Marcus had said. 

[I only have twenty years with Him]

(What did she do to deserve this?)

[And John? He has no wrong on him either!]

(I know what I want!)

"What I want isn't important," the former Satai murmured, "I am happy to take what is alotted to me." 

The door-- a shaft of light. 

"Delenn?"

She turned slowly, blood on her hands, to smile up at her human huband. "Hello, John."

"Is something wrong?" he glanced quickly at the shattered crystal, curious as always with any unfamiliar object. 

"I'm just," Delenn pursed her lips, sweeping the jagged pieces of glass into the little black box, "I'm worried about Marcus. I keep thinking of him-- of what I don't know about him."

"Don't know?" John asked quizically. Delenn rose in one smooth movement and gathered a small towel from the kitchenette. Wetting it, she returned to mop up the small red stain on the floor. 

"No one ever really knew much about him," the Entil'Zha confessed, "Even Sinclair only had the bare facts-- that Marcus joined the Rangers at his brother's dying wish." She began to bare down on the crimson splash of color, feeling as if it wouldn't come out, "Marcus was very sullen-- shy. He rarely spoke two words together when he was on Minbar. Then, he comes here and..."

One word, a name-- John had, after all, lost his almost-sister. "Susan."

"Yes," Delenn took up the ruined rag and nearly flung it into the garbage unit, afraid to hold onto it any longer than nessecary. "I worry now... we all place so much of our existence on others. It is the only way to live fully-- by loving-- but it is very dangerous." Something is about to happen, she wanted to say, I looked in Marcus' eyes and I saw a maze even he is lost in. 

"It'll be alright. We've made it this far," John's embrace was tight, but somehow unreal. She was million fireflies-- the essence at the center of a star. Something that could not be held. She sunk into his embrace, and then drifted out again.

"I know." The next words were a comfort on her lips, "Faith manages." 

Very carefully, she began to blow out all the candles.

+ + + + + + + + + + + 

The summer Marcus turned thirteen, he learned something about death. The defuse, yellow light of Arisia poured through the windows and pooled on the floor. He was wading in the sunlight, bare feet on the old-fashioned wooden boards, and Hasina had been holding his hand so tightly he thought her fingers might have become needles. Down the steps, one, two, three at a time, with his shoes clutched in his free hand. Hasina turned, just once, and pressed a long, thin brown finger to her lips; there was something in her warm dark eyes. Not glee, but the thrill prey gets when it looses the hunter, the excitement when you fall or choke or cut yourself and live. Laughing when death comes knocking, rolling on the floor with giggles. 

"I figured it out," Hasina's voice was the sound of dry leaves on stone as they huddled in the cold corner of her basement. "I'm cried and cried until Mama was thinking of sending for the medic, but then... it suddenly all made sense." Her eyes were rimmed red in testament to her tears, but she was smiling. God, was it a strange smile.

Dreaming this dream that was a memory, Marcus thought perhaps he finally understood the strange calm and purpose that had over-taken Hasina then. 

Hasina leaned close, with the slant of sunlight from the window falling right over her eyes like a reverse mask. 

"Priscilla doesn't have to be dead," breathless with wonder. A secret. Marcus, thirteen and a runt who stood just at his friend's height, shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to think. He would wait until Hasina made sense-- he would *not* think of Priscilla, the fourth member of their little band; he would not think of her blue-black hair turning purple with the stain of red blood, or how strange and wide her eyes were when the rocks came tumbling down. He did not want to think that she would not be coming back, and that someday, the same thing would happen to Will and to Hasina and to...

"Death happens, Hasina," Marcus parrotted the words hs mother had been repeating for the past few days. She seemed to think if she said it enough, it would somehow cleanse her two boys. "You can't stop it."

"I can't," Hasina murmured, stepped backwards away from him. In the cold, dusty cellar, she looked small and mouse-like; a child dressed in her older brother's shirt and rough work pants. She held out her small hand, the palm of which was lighter than the rest of her skin, "But you can." Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her hand, perhaps intending to pull his friend away from the dangerous edge on which she stood. There was a steel in Hasina that hadn't been there before; her grip was stronger and she led him with her through the wide stone threshold. 

Hasina's mother was the town coroner, the keeper of the bodies eaten up by disease and harsh working conditions of mining q-40 from deep under the surface. "Someone has to take care of the dead," Hasina said often. She carried with her gruesome tales of the measures needed to put bodies back together for the veiwing, of sleeping at night knowing a husk filled with death is really and truly in your basement. She knew death better, more intimately than Marcus; he thought, quite suddenly, that she was purposely keeping her eyes closed. 

The boy stressed, "What can *I* do?"

Priscilla was laid out on a long metal table-- hair a dull black-sapphire in the poor lighting. Eyes closed and hands at her heart, she looked strange-- someone had chosen a black dress with little red print to bury her in, so much more formal than Marcus had ever seen her. A doll, dressed up, waiting for her owner to take her to the tea party. 

"You've always said you're a knight," Hasina's voice was hard and insistant, "Remember? Will is the dragon, I'm your squire and you're the knight." Much more quietly, as she reached out to touch the cheek of her dead best friend, "Priscilla was the princess. It should work, Marcus. You can wake her up."

"Hasina!" it was loud, much louder than he'd ever meant, but filled with understanding. He could almost feel the weight of the armor on his shoulders, the sword sheathed a his side. Later, much later, Hasina would lay limp and half-burnt in the rubble of the colony; later, Marcus would see her corpse and run the other way, unable to even bury her properly. Right now she was only twelve, and her hands were clasped in prayer as she bent her head, short ebony locks brushing her cheek. She was his friend, his squire, the person he was trying to teach to be brave and honorable while figuring it out for himself. Hasina's wisdom was the perfect, insane logic of a child. 

('Insanity-- as they say, is animalistic. It's getting what you want-- placing that as most important')

He said in half protest, "It's my first kiss."

"I'm sorry," Hasina bit her lip until it bled and she licked it absently, "But I.. I'd do it myself, but Marcus, I *can't*. I'm..." she gestured at her body in despair, "I already tried!" A fear tears now, doting her cheeks like freckles, "You're the knight. Please, Marcus. She was my best friend. I loved her." He would not understand until much later what that meant, "Please, Marcus?" A question, as if she was certain he wasn't real. 

Because in the rest of his life he would only love two women more than this one-- one loved because of honor and the other loved because of soul-- Marcus bent gently over Priscilla's corpse and pressed his lips to the chill flesh of her mouth.

In the dream, the body was not Priscilla's, but Susan's. 

Waking with his sleeping-thoughts in his throat, Marcus pushed himself out of bed and reached blindly for the bottle of vodka on his small counter. He had taken up Susan's vice as a type of totem, though why he did not know. Silently, his quarters seemed to breathe around him, broken only by the sound of the bottle's mouth clicking against his glass. There seemed to be an inaudiable 'pop' behind him, and Marcus somehow couldn't find himself to be surprised when Mr. Morden pulled up another chair and sat beside him. 

"You know what your problem is, Marcus?" Morden asked, glancing significantly at the bottle of alcohol. Pulling forth another glass from the cupboard, Marcus filled it and handed it to the shadow agent. 

"Aren't you just a fountain of knowledge, now," Marcus remarked dryly. He took a sip of his vodka and made a face. "I'll never know how she stood this stuff." Morden shifted, one elbow on the counter, looking at his client. "Fine, fine," the ranger said, "I'm breathless with anticipation."

"Your problem," Morden intoned, "Is that you're a good person."

Bitter laughter from the other man.

"You may have killed a few people-- here and there, but it was for the One," Morden sneered, "You may have lied, pulled a few dirty tricks in your time, but essentially, you *are* a good person. You have a hard time being selfish. That's why you kissed a dead girl--"

"Fat lot of good that did," Marcus interupted, "But I... I couldn't have Hasina thinking that maybe Priscilla could have been saved. Maybe for a minute I actually believed it might work." He turned suddenly, looking Morden full in the face, "How do I know this isn't the same kind of thing?"

"You know quite well that my associates can back up any offer they make," the shadow agent pointed out, "You've seen Londo Mollari."

"Londo," Marcus took a large swig, "Now that is a hell of a bad sales pitch."

"You were willing to give your life to save hers," Morden demured, "I'm afraid no one can demand a price much higher than that."

"No sir," the Ranger raised his cup, as if to toast Mr. Morden, "just my morals and my soul." Solemnly, he asked, "Will it hurt her?"

"Being alive? Most certainly not. She will suffer none of the injuries that killed her in the first place."

"You must understand, Mr. Morden," Marcus said honestly, "I can not commit blasphemy against her. I can't make her be a monster-- that would be worse than if I killed her myself."

"Death has not changed me," Morden spread his arms to indicate his body as proof. 

"Ah, I see." Marcus drank deeply again, and refilled his glass, "So you've always been a dishonorable, lying bastard."

Morden's smile was filled with mirth, "Yes, Mr. Cole. I have always been a dishonorable, lying bastard." Then, he leaned forward, as if confiding a great secret. "You know, Marcus, you don't have all the time in the world. Life is a dream, and you know how hard it is to sink back into a dream once you've been awakened."

Marcus thought of Susan, eyes bright with the blue at the center of a flame; Susan laughing with him, yelling at him, telling him things he knew she'd never told anyone else. He thought of her as he had seen her in the vision, unguarded and smiling. He thought of her pale, pretty face at the end-- yes, pretty despite all the bruising. Susan, who screamed and no one, not even her precious Sheridan seemed to notice. He had been screaming too, but he'd heard her over his own cry. He was still screaming. 

Softly, but firm with determination, "I know what I want."

"That's why I'm here, Mr. Cole." Another chesire smile. 

A line in the sand, being blown away by the desert wind. 

"Just say the words, Mr. Cole."

"I want..."

A breath in, breath out. 

("God sent me.")

"I want Susan back."

================================

TBC.

And now, for your regularly scheduled silly rhyme:

(to the tune of "Hokey Pokey")

__

"You press review,

that's what you do,

You press review,

And give old Mere a shout.

Reading the fic

and hitting the keys,

That's what it's all about!"


End file.
